How Portland Sold Its Banks on Walkable Development

Noah Kazis looks at how Portland, Oregon overcame the resistance of lenders to new forms of development:

"Megan Gibb runs Metro's transit-oriented development program, which works with developers and offers financial incentives for TOD. The Crossings, for example, received discounted land, tax breaks, and other financial incentives from Metro. "Our whole program is to build more market-comparables," said Gibb. "The more TOD projects there are, the more it builds on itself." Each project that gets built makes the next one easier to finance."

Kazis says that cities often need to "double down" on new projects, offering considerable incentives to break through the inertia and create new models.